Plans were  made for future visits,camping trips, holidays.  Recipes shared.  An amazing woman is no longer with us and now her cookbook is closed forever.

My sadness is immense and it is shared.  All of us who knew her are in stunned silence.  How could this be and why did we not know?  How could she not share this  with us all and let us help her carry this burden.  Why no last good-byes?  We’ll never  know now nor will we ever understand.

We love you Janice and good-bye.

the big guy in the pond, everyone else was about the size of our thumb nails

Started out for a nice long sunday drive with a picnic lunch somewhere in the mix.  Ended up almost to Kimberley via the long way around Skookumchuck  and the Torrent road drive.  We found a couple of little forestry campsites that we had seen on our backwoods mapbook.  We also, along the way, met a few little friends….

I had edited the bear pic and rotated it but as usual wordpress does what it has a mind to.

We found the Buhle Creek Hot springs, actually lukewarm and a lovely place for kids to play.  Me standing on the side of one of the pools.

We ended up driving about 63 kms. in search of potential elk hunting grounds for the fall.  Leonard (an avid elk hunter) is glassing some of the shows (slides on the side of a mountain) for any sign of elk.

A few more kms and we stopped for lunch (nearly at the end of the road) much to Len’s chagrin.

No excuses, just life, and busyness. Ha that’s not correct English but it is what it is.  I have been organizing a new computer and it has not cooperated with my blog and many other things I’ve got going on but I think that I now have it licked.

I look forward to reading my daughter’s blog “big & little”  with great pleasure and I am so sure she is disappointed at how few posts I have published on mine.  Trying not to feel guilty, I will attempt to keep up with her.  It is so fascinating the following she has received.  Am I a little bit proud! Yes, her philosophical outlook on life,  beautiful family and amazing photographic talent continually make me proud.

I don’t know if this is the place my dear but this is how i feel right now in the moment.

Thank you for a lovely weekend!  The only thing missing was a fine wine! LOL

I needed to say thank you to all of the soldiers out there protecting our homes, lives, families.  May you come home as safe as some of our fathers and brothers and may it be soon.

Why do I do this to myself??  I have just decided I am a quitter.  I have great intentions and then as soon as I committ to something I just can’t get started.  A million projects I’d like to do.  Sewing, quilting, blogging, cleaning, work, more cleaning, blogging.   Paint for bathrooms purchased and not started.  Organizational systems purchased but closets etc. not organized.  The only thing I think I get accomplished is work at work because I have to. 

It has been a chaotic spring with a little happiness/sadness/surprise thrown in.   Some I can speak of and others well?  We joined a horse people’s group which I think is going to be enjoyable.  Lots of fun days planned for get togethers.  My husband has already been out to a few with his horse, Roscoe.  Nice bunch of people and very enjoyable days spent outdoors in the mountains.  Spring is beautiful here and if I can ever figure out how to get my pics to upload to my blog I will add some.

Right now I am fighting with a mystery as everyone can see my custom header??? and even pics my sister added with my permission and password but me???

Will try again when I have much, much, more patience.

I have often dreamed of becoming a writer of sorts so I need to start somewhere, right??  I have spent some time writing a few short stories with a creative writing group and it has given me a bit of a bug to continue. 

Life is just to interesting at times to not be recorded in some fashion.   Memories  from the past blur and fade and demand documentation.  Maybe it is just my menopausal moments but I find my memory fades out and I want to document some of this for my children and grandchildren. 

My younger sister has a blog that touches on our family lineage (sounds like we are royalty hey!) and it has brought much of my need to document our history to mind.  

I now need to figure out how to import my previous blog from blogger.  Bear with me and I will return soon.

A new little foal in the barnyard. Her name is probably patches (go figure) and she has a great Mom as long as you stay away from her.

Pyper (Mom’s name) is big-time attitude and don’t mess with my baby.

She is so soft and fuzzy!!! Just thought I’d share this cutie with all.

“Love is a Many Splendored Thing”

Color, 102 min.

Released: August 10, 1955 (20th Century Fox)

Cast: Jennifer Jones (as Han Suyin), William Holden, Torin Thatcher, Isobel Elsom, Murray Matheson, Virginia Gregg.

A few weeks ago I found a treasure in a book table at the Sally Anne. Three little books which included this one “A Many Splendored Thing”. This was written by Han Suyin and was the precursor to this romantic war movie. I think of all the movies I watched as a child (I was born in 1954 when all we had was black & white tv) this made the most profound impression on me.

I don’t know if it was the romance or the tragedy, perhaps just the first impression of watching a complete film in color and all its beauty but it has stayed with me all these many years. When I saw this little dog-eared set of three novels I had to buy them. My intention is to read this book and finally know the story behind my favorite 50′s era film.

Much to my surprise, when I opened the book it had this page from the Broadsheet Review (Circa January, 1954) folded inside of it. Elation!! A little snippet of someone’s forgotten history carefully preserved inside. My guess is the person who originally owned this book was also touched by this story and kept these two bits of memorabilia together. I’m quite sure they would be surprised that it would end up in the home of someone for whom it made such an impact or that just a year later,in 1955, it would become a major motion picture.

The story is tragic and based on her own life experience during WW II. The difficulties of being a Eurasian woman on her own in war-time europe. Our daughters have no idea what life was really like for women in this time. Women had definite roles in society and love between the races was most definitely frowned upon and could even lead one to be ostracized from their families and community.

Funny, but it brought out some childhood memories of the war when I started to skim through the article. I had forgotten about the air-raid sirens we used to hear periodically. The City of Winnipeg had huge air sirens mounted on telephone poles around the city that they would test. We had one at the Sinclair Park (children’s playground) near our home. The idea being that in the event of a war or some other disaster I guess, we were supposed to all run home and hide in our basements/crawlspaces etc. with our radios on for further instruction. I only remember them till probably the early 60′s and don’t even know if they are still there now.

The war was a big part of our lives when I was a child because all of our neighbors were discharged soldiers and many emotionally carried the scars of it. I recall always hearing about the war and seeing the difficulties many families struggled with because of it. Our houses were called war-time houses and were built specifically for returning soldiers and their families. All identical and tiny with dirt crawl-spaces for basements. My Dad only rented this home for us and my Mom finally purchased it when he passed away. I think the governement felt sorry for her and didn’t want to evict a widow and four kids with no income to support them. I now can only imagine how difficult a time it was for her.

I think that age and nostalgia brought forth this post and my intention now is to document more of these moments for my children and grandchildren to collect. I do believe my daughter will find these little bits of interest to her.

Here are two of my adorable grandsons, Aden 13 and Sammy whos 15 mths. approx. Love them to bits. Had a great visit two weeks ago with the family down on the island. It just plain went too fast though. The week was spent relaxing, a bit of shopping but not too much outside of the house trips.

Cold and freezing temps kept us housebound and playing scrabble. It was nice to spend time with the boys and I think (according to my daughter) little Sam took quite a shine to me. At least I think when he sees me next he will actually remember I am Gramma. Much more relaxed with me than his bigger brother Kale was at that age. Kale made strange and you couldn’t babysit him at all.

This pic was funny because we had been trying to keep Kale from his naps and then he slept really well through the night. One afternoon he asked if he could watch a show and when i went in he was snoozing in a pillow. I took the pic and showed it to him later and his comment was “But I wasn’t sleeping my eyes weren’t closed” he insisted that he didn’t fall asleep. Too cute!

We met up with my girlfriend Madeline several times and even spent the evening out with her friends at a lovely posh new lounge for 2 for 1 appies hour. Roasted garlic and Brie, prawns, kalamari and a few others. It was divine and my daughter felt very spoiled being out with the grownups and no kiddies in tow. It was very relaxing. My intention was to take them out to the keg (Todd included) but we just couldn’t pull it all together.

Her fourth baby is due in June and I am planning to be there to help out for a week. Perhaps we can do out evening out then. With a couple of little ones, I do admit that going out is a bit of a challenge.